Honesty and Integrity: The Appraisal Company

We think of what we do as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at The Appraisal Company, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else The Appraisal Company takes very seriously.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics as the acceptance of an assignment that is contingent on "the reporting of a pre-determined result (e.g., opinion of value)," "a direction in assignment results that favors the cause of the client," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With The Appraisal Company, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.